Photograph
by Miss Peg
Summary: She gripped the photograph in her hands, her knuckles white and her fingertips red. The creases at the edges didn't bother her anymore / Angst / One-shot / Written for wolvesjr34
**Author Notes** **: A very happy birthday to wolvesjr34, this one is for you, in all of its angsty goodness. It's inspired by the song Photograph by Ed Sheeran. It is an alternative season 6 I suppose. Basically go back to when Jane was trying to find another apartment, and the story goes from there...**

 **Disclaimer: Rizzoli and Isles isn't mine,unfortunately.**

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She gripped the photograph in her hands, her knuckles white and her fingertips red. The creases at the edges didn't bother her anymore. She ran a finger across Maura's blonde locks, down her long, thin nose and around her plump, pink lips. The ache stretched from her heart right down to the tips of her toes. A groan slipped from her mouth; an outburst she couldn't control. Her stomach twisted up in knots. She wanted to scream, and kick, and toss herself about. But the constraints held her arms close to the bed, and her legs were fractured in several places.

x

Maura stared into Jane's eyes. Breathless. Fingers danced across her clavicle, tangled up through her blonde hair and pulled her closer. Brown on hazel, dilated pupils fixed on each other as the world dissipated around them. The streetlight shone above them, barely lighting the dull street. She vaguely remembered Jane needing to go to her new apartment to sleep. Then lips pressed against Maura's and she couldn't remember anything at all. Soft, gentle movements filled her mind and she couldn't see anything but Jane's face moving in front of her, her eyes now closed. Maura allowed her lids to shutter closed. Fingers shifted across her cheeks. The familiar scent of BPD hand wash and Jane's bologna sandwich filled her lungs. She smiled into the embrace. When Jane stepped back she followed her, desperate for the moment not to end.

"Wanna come upstairs?" Jane asked. She barely nodded, her hands already clawing at Jane's clothing.

x

"When is she going to get better?"

Jane lifted her head. Her eyes opened. Her mind fully alert at the sound of her mother's voice. She searched her brain for the words she needed to speak, to say, to ask, but nothing came. The constraints were like hands around her neck. The desperate need to breathe easier filled her with panic. She groaned, the only sound she could find a way to make.

"It's okay, Janie, Ma's here," Angela said, reaching a hand out. Jane gripped it, squeezing tightly until she felt her mother's pain reach through the scar in her palm. She loosened her grip.

Despite giving her that small gift, Angela didn't move from her position in front of the doctor. Her resolve strong as she fought for information.

"It's been six months. We've seen no progress. At this stage, it's difficult to say."

x

She remembered the dark street, the coroner's van, and the police tape. There was nothing untoward. Maura clutched her medical bag and carried it under the police line towards the body. What should have been a body. She remembered a struggle. A hand placed around her face, fabric between the oily stench of their hand and her mouth. She held her breath, knew what was happening, and allowed herself to go limp. It was the only way she could remembered. By the end of the journey in the back of the van, she'd counted three left turns, two rights, another left, another right and a left bend in the road. She'd felt speed bumps, and heard a barrier, then she heard silence.

The room was filled with old medical furniture and equipment. There were a dozen places she could surmise she was being held. It didn't matter, though, because she had no way of telling anyone.

Instead she sat in the room, dehydrated, delirious, counting down the days that passed. Her wrists chafed from where the handcuffs held her up against a metal pipe. The locket around her neck was the only source of comfort she could muster in her darkest times. If she stood up a little, perched against the radiator and lifted one hand, she could open the locket.

Jane grinned back at her. Her own face leaned against Jane's cheek, her lips pressed against her skin. She remembered the day well, it was etched in her memories, and it was the one thing that kept her going.

x

Words were lost in her mind, hidden away, abandoned somewhere between the moment Maura was taken and the day she arrived at the hospital. The pain in her legs never ceased, though they told her it was all in her mind. _She_ was in her mind. She could feel the pain right down to the bone. The breaks she'd sustained when she fell.

"Maybe we can talk today, Jane."

She closed her eyes. The unfamiliar voice at the foot of the bed grated on her. The woman's tone was whiny. Her eyes were too hazel. Her hair was too blonde. She was not Maura, she would never be Maura, and it hurt too much to listen to her speak.

"How are you feeling today?"

After a couple more questions, the twist in Jane's stomach reached her fists. She balled them up, the pain in her palms as difficult to bear as her legs. The sound started in her stomach, until she opened her mouth wide and it bounced between the four walls, ending up back in her ears.

x

Sixteen days after she arrived, they came back for her. She marked the dirt and followed faithfully, her hands attached to a chain and she walked like a slave trailing behind her master. When they reached the end of the tunnel and the man opened the door, Maura knew her chance of being saved had reached its end. There were no more clues, no more ways of alerting Jane to what would be happening next.

She didn't know.

Maura was pushed into the back of another van. She lay down on a tattered piece of muslin. Her hands ached from their new position. She closed her eyes and listened to the sound of traffic that surrounded them. She didn't know how many days passed, or how many hours. She lost all sense of time. They stopped for a break, and she was given a small bottle of water which she guzzled down. A mouthful of chocolate tasted like something they'd serve in Heaven. She wondered if her lack of belief in something more would make it harder.

Death was surely easier if you had somewhere to go after.

x

The photograph faded every day. Maura's face rubbed from the paper by Jane's own hands. She continued to move her fingers across the white space, reliant only on her memories for the face she had lost.

They moved her out of the bed and into a chair in the morning. They rolled her out into the garden. A garden she had never seen before. The sun shone high above the sky. Maura disappeared at the end of the summer. Buds were now on the trees and the tulips flowered in bright colours.

"Afternoon, Janie," Frankie said, sitting down beside her. He took her hand and she stared into his eyes. They looked older.

"We wanted you to meet Anton."

She turned her head. Beside Frankie, Nina sat with a baby on her lap. His chubby cheeks brought a smile to Jane's lips. The dark tangle of curls atop his head were mesmerising. She reached a hand out to him.

Something wasn't right.

She couldn't remember Frankie and Nina getting together. Though the child had the same tone of skin as Nina, he looked distinctly like her brother.

"Maura," she whispered, the first word to fall from her lips in…she didn't know how long.

"It's a cold case now," Frankie said, gripping her hand tighter. She stared down at his fingers. "We tried to fight it, but there's nothing we can do."

x

Five hundred and forty nine days and counting.

Every day she wondered if something would change, yet every day remained the same.

Her wrists were freed on the twentieth day when the basement became her home. She tried – once – to get away, on day thirty-two, and found her wrists locked to the uncomfortable bed.

By day seventy-nine, she wondered if she'd ever see Jane again. Every day she woke to the sound of her voice whispering into her ear, begging her to wake up. She felt the softness of her lips trailing kisses along her clavicle, her cold fingers testing the boundaries of her clothing.

When she opened her eyes, she wished to be back in the moment before, in her memories, where Jane was by her side and everything would be okay.

She washed in a tiny basin in the corner of the room. Then she spent the day staring out of the even smaller window, too small to crawl through even if the bars were removed.

At night she closed her eyes and wrapped her hand around the locket above her heart. She returned to the memory of Jane.

To her laughter as they watched a movie on her couch.

To her hand resting comfortably on her thigh.

To her lips wishing her goodnight.

To the dreams she cherished in her moments of darkness.

To the permanent photograph inside her brain.

Maybe one day she would see her face again. Until then, she would count down the days, and try not to lose hope. Even if she died trying.

 _ **THE END**_

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 **Author Notes** **: Thank you for reading. I'd love to know what you think of my one-shot.**


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